Sunday, July 15, 2012

Onion Haaaaaaaay!

With a name always spoken with the exact inflection of Dean Vernon Wormer in "Animal House," the nefarious Onion Haaaaaaaay reared his nefarious head one nefarious night this nefarious week at Hottie Hawgs. And with two little--henceforth reprehensible--words, this Asian Crusader of Evil wormed his way into my I-Hate-That-You-Breathe record books:

Onion Hay.

To begin at the nefarious beginning, I should clarify that onion hay is a tasty side item offered at H.H. Similar to the stuff you'd get in a bloomin' onion, our hay is fried, stacked and delicious. It's no wonder Onion Hay wanted an order.

Or did he?

Like all stories of this level of nefariousness (Nefarity? Nefaritude?), this one began on a dark and stormy night (that it was actually afternoon is irrelevant). Not-Yet-Named-Onion-Hay, this Asian fellow and his girlfriend arrive at H.H. and decide to sit on the patio. It's humid. It's blazing. It's about to rain. So, naturally, Not-Yet-Onion-Hay wanted me to run outside every 5 minutes. Grand.

On greeting them, I learn that Not-Yet-Onion-Hay and his girlfriend are:

1. Not that hungry so they'll be ordering something "to split."

2. Only having water, thank you.

3. Expecting two more people but those people won't be hungry either because they just ate so they will have waters also.

Waters delivered, the couple order a side of onion hay and a meat.

Whatever. At least they won't be harassing me for condiments.

Diligently I put in their order and then return to my other duties--assisting tables, filling condiment buckets, chatting up customers...when lo and behold--who should tap me on the shoulder but Not-Yet-Onion-Hay!

"Yes sir, can I help you?"

"Ummm...yeah. Like I said earlier, I'm not that hungry, so...could you just cancel that order for onion hay?"

Ooooookaaaaaay. So now my table of 4 people who are outside in "the miserable" and guzzling water like...whatever guzzles water...are only going to have 1 order of meat? Excellent.

So I set about the rigamarole that is finding a manager and having said manager remove the order. The questions follow. "Why do they want this removed from the order? Was there something wrong with it? Was the customer dissatisfied?" Nope. No. No. He just "wasn't that hungry."

As this IS my life, one should not be surprised that in the time it took to find a manager and conduct the previously outlined interaction, the onion hay in question came up in the food window. The kitchen had not received adequate notice to cancel the order. So I had to tell them to throw the onion hay away.

Not only did this move not win me any friends in the kitchen, it also upped the restaurant's food cost of this order...We weren't making any money on this table to begin with, and now we were losing money!

Pissed with Not-Yet-Onion-Hay for being an idiot, and pissed at the kitchen for being pissed at me, I returned to my patrons who had actually come to a restaurant to eat.

Now, up to and until this moment, Not-Yet-Onion-Hay had proven a not-so-unusual thorn in my side. Every shift has "one of those" customers that makes you wonder if people today really are the old wives tale incarnation of barn births. But this--THIS!--is where Not-Yet-Onion-Hay stepped out of the realm of mundane irritant and into the annals of I-Swear-I-Will-Shake-You-Into-Adult-Onset-SIDS.

As I once-again venture into the sweaty, heat/rain mess that is our patio...refilling the free drinks these people are swilling like...whatever swills... Not-Yet-Onion-Hay looks up and me and says:

*AHEM*

"You know, I'm actually pretty hungry. CAN I GET SOME ONION HAY?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I could feel my face burning. I KNEW I was making "the face"--that oh-my-god-you-are-the-biggest-fucking-idiot-I've-ever-had-the-misfortune-of-encountering-and-if-I-ever-meet-you-in-a-dark-alley-you-better-pray-to-Allah-that-he-has-mercy-on-your-damned-soul" face.

Shelly Cofield knows which face I mean.

Without a word, I stormed inside.

Concerned, my beautiful friend and coworker Meghan called out from behind the bar: "Erin, are you ok?"

"Nope. No. I'm NOT ok!"

"What happened?"

"You know that guy? The one who just caused all that commotion in the kitchen? Yeah. He's hungry now. And guess what he wants?!?!?!?